Re: Anarchy... Not Really

Essentially it's not anarchy they really want, as much as they may say so, it is really a social revolution they want because some people just want everything their way

Hmm... it occurs to me that I said I was an Anarchist.

After failing to get a reaction out of me by insinuating that total anarchy was a teenage fantasy of deluded wannabe's that they all grew out of (a VERY obvious truth), you are changing tack, and insinuating that anyone who wants to change the way they live is a greedy, lazy, delusional idealist. They want an easy life with no hardship. And for some people, that may be true too.

Let's switch area of discussion for a moment. Anyone who thinks there is nothing wrong with the way we live quite clearly has their head quite deeply up their ass. You your self stated that the world is going to end...

The world is going to end, that is to say the end of mankinds existence, in 2012. At the peak of political chaos, terrorism, decadence, and sin; a comet will snuff out the human race like a cigarette butt

The comet is not our fault... but you see the rest. So you awknoledge our society has deep, deep problems. But at the same time, you seem to be against anyone who is willing to make the drastic enough changes required to fix them.

What do you call someone who KNOWS there's a problem but is unwilling to fix it? Lazy.

In my mind, there are two exceptions.

1. If the problem appears to be impossible to fix, then there is no point in trying to fix it, right?

2. If the world is going to end in 7 years no matter what we do, we obviously have free right to do whatever we want because it doesn't matter in the end.

You seem to be a subscriber to both of these. And since so many people share your views in that way, it almost makes them both true. Almost.

Bunk's Anarchial Views

There is a better way of living for everyone on earth.

That better way is not necessarily the same for everyone.

The way we are living now is destroying the earth.

We DID NOT ALWAYS LIVE THIS WAY.

We were not "destined" to live the way we are living now, meaning that there is/was more than one way our history could have unfolded.

The government alone does not propagate our way of living, therefore a CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT IS IRRELEVANT.

We should work to live, not live to work.

Right now, we are slaves, meaning we MUST support the system in order to survive.

We don't HAVE to be slaves in order to have good food.

We don't HAVE to be slaves in order to have science, history, art, and quality of life.

Well, if i was one of those "I hate authority, I want to be free and have no responsibility, anarchist wannabe's," then I would take an offense to that comment

Of course. It wouldn't be true. They wouldn't qualify as being excellently programmed.

They would be wrong. We are all programmed. Every single piece of information that we recieve as input becomes part of us, and influences us in ways to subtle for us to notice.

Well, I guess what I meant by successful is a society that is prosperous enough to divert it's whole attention from just getting food, shelter, and what not; and is able to create the greater things of a society: mathematics, religion, science

I think you have to continue that a little further. What is the point of mathematics, religion, science? Are they things to be had simply for their own sake? What benefit do they provide?

This is a fairly obvious question, so I'll fill in the answer. If you disagree with my answer, say so.

They improve quality of life, right? What other point could there be.

So stating it a little simpler, would you say that the most successful civilization is the one that provides the best lives for the people it affects?

You are right when you say that if you cut the leadership out of our society, it would cease to function. Our society REQUIRES that the majority of our wealth is controlled by the minority of the people. Yes, quality of life trickles down eventually, but for the majority this just means that they are better able to use the people below them.

I'll let you in on a secret: I'm not really in touch with other Anarchists right now. I don't know what their philosophies are, our where they stand on different issues. And if they are really saying shitheaded things such as

knowledge and truth ruin people and take away their innocense

I'm not going to call myself an anarchist. As a rule, I hate labels. Labels make people assume certain things about people. for example, there would be no point in me calling you a "Hip-swinging old flower girl", because (a) it doesn't apply (?) and (b) trying to sum people up in a sentence or a word doesn't work.

Humans are consumers

The definition of life is an organism that consumes. All life forms consume. But not all life forms are destroying the earth as a result.

You might say the difference is that we are smarter than all other forms of life. But that fails to account for the vast portion of human history where we WEREN'T destroying the earth.

What's different is the way we live.

Progression of knowledge, it won't be stopped

This is the essential proving point behind your argument. But the truth is, progression of knowledge is not the driving force behind the way we live, nor is it the cause of all our problems.

Let's look at the negative points of our society. They go far beyond the unhappiness of a few unemployed bums. You listed some of them yourself. They include suicide, depression, persecution, hate, war, famine, overpopulation, decadence, crime, slavery, malevolence, sin, ignorance, and the most important, The destruction of the planet.

Progression of knowledge did not cause all these problems, nor will it ever be the solution to them (as much as we may think or want it to be). I don't know if the world can be saved, but we have to at least understand WHY before we condemn it so.

Re: Anarchy... Not Really

As repeated before, a society must have a spectrum of rank. There must be a leader at the top, and a patron at the bottom. There's no getting around it. Trying to make everyone have an equal share in the complete governing of a nation may work in a small village, but it would be insane to try that in a "million strong population" country. The Soviets tried something like that, although it was highly hypocritical and corrupt, and it didn't work out very well. If you think about it, the closest thing to Communism in a society that was actually successful, was the heirarchy of the Tribes of the Native Americans. Too bad us white man had to destroy that, as with everything else we find. :-/

- [A society NOT obsessed with money/power] -

Money.....the true evil. Well, you can't look at it that way totally, money was a way to relate value of something to another. Problem is: how do you truely set a "price" or value on something? I mean,

"one man's garbage is another man's treasure..."

In the essence of the meaning, money is power. The more money you have; the more you can do, the more you can "consume", the more you can control, etc. And that's one of the problems with society, we are too obsessed with power and control. And what does it get you? happiness? Does another Porsche sitting in your driveway make you that much more at peace with yourself. The monks of Tibet have no money, yet they are at total piece and enlightenment. For thousands of years, the Native Americans had no sense of monetary value, yet they prospered (That is..until the European settlers came in, took their land, and claimed it for themselves). What I'm trying to get at is...what value does money really have? The dollars in your wallet? What are they good for? Ok, if you have enough dollars in your wallet, you can exchange it for a brick of gold (or so the monetary system of America has it valued). Now you have a brick of gold...a shiny, metal brick.......wow, lots of fun with that. In a practical world, it's a useless chunk of shit. It's what WE made it to be that has given it "value".

- [A society that appreciates the skills and traits of the individuals and puts them to good use] -

If a guy is good at lifting boxes, hook him up. If a guy is good at painting and enjoys doing it, hook him up. If people do what they like to do, even if it is work, that paycheck won't be so dire. It will be the task, or having a purpose, that drives the person, not money in their pocket. That's the thing, our society needs to change from being obsessed with money and power, and needs to look into the more fulfilling aspects of life.....FULFILLING YOUR PURPOSE. You can have all the money and gold and power in the world,

but you still wont be TRUELY fulfilled until you find what it is that you were put on this Earth to do.

The problem is...our society is "programmed". We are programmed to want "to get rich", want "the big car", want "the big house", want "those cool Nike's", want all this crap that won't do a damn thing for us.

What's the difference between a man who has everything and a man who has nothing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are still men.

You want to know why rich people buy tons of expensive crap? It's because they feel empty inside, like they are missing a part of their soul and the only way to get it back is to fill it with material possessions. And in time, those material things begin to own them. They become slaves to their own possessions.

anyway.

--------------------- End Ideals-------------------

Well, after reading this, you may think that I'm an anarchist, or a communist, or something (ironic isn't it :-) )....but I'm not. I don't believe in " ism's". Like the words of the great philosopher Bruce Lee:

"Have no way, as way..."

I don't believe in destroying the government, or insighting a revolution in the world order. I simply believe that for our society to truely "prosper" to it's full potential, yes, a change is needed. In my opinion it is much better to enlighten someone, than to force feed it down their throat.

A man is not measured by his bank account. He is measured by his character. When the shit hits the fan, what is that guy going to do? That's the true test of any man.

Re: Anarchy... Not Really

Very interesting. I think you very nicely point out part of the downside of capitalism, and society in general. There are a few things I'd like to pick out for discussion.

If you think about it, the closest thing to Communism in a society that was actually successful, was the heirarchy of the Tribes of the Native Americans. Too bad us white man had to destroy that, as with everything else we find.

I think this is a huge point you're hitting on. Why did we destroy them? Why did we destroy whatever else we found?

I don't believe in destroying the government, or insighting a revolution in the world order. I simply believe that for our society to truely "prosper" to it's full potential, yes, a change is needed. In my opinion it is much better to enlighten someone, than to force feed it down their throat.

Depending on what you mean by "prosper", I agree with you in theory. The world won't be fixed by re-writing the programming. People have to be 'enlightened' as you say. Put differently, people cannot be changed by anyone but themselves: they can be shown the door but only they can walk through it.

The problem is time.

In the cosmic sense, all of that which we refer to as human history (about 8,000 years) has occured in the blink of an eye. (the actual history of the human race is much longer, closer to 3,000,000 years. But for whatever reason, that part of our history is 100% ignored by all historians). In that relatively short time, a certain way of thinking and living has spread across the earth. It began in the fertile crescent and has expanded to cover the globe. This new way of thinking and living is what we refer to as civilization.

This new way is what I refer to with my story about the man with the shotgun. Now, there has obviously been more than one civilization in history. But when you think about it, lots of people have shotguns, and it was inevitable that one or two of them would decide that they too would try living that way, going around killing whoever they ran into, using the resources they found and moving on.

Obviously this method presented problems as well. Guilt, fatigue, people fighting back, blood stains, and the general feeling that you were doing something seriously wrong.

The message they recieved from this? "Build a better gun. Become a more efficient killer. Then it'll all work out."

All the vast problems we are experiencing as a race send to me this message: This story is about to end. This way of thinking/living has created more problems than it has solved. It DOES NOT WORK.

I said before there were two ways that the story could end

1. Someone will pick up a shovel and smash my head in when I'm looking the other way

or

2. (more likely) I will kill everyone on the planet. Should take about 10,000 years (not that long really). And then there will be no more food, no more houses, no more cars, boats, tv's, etc. And I'll die.

We are dangerously close to option 2 right now. At the rate we are going, the world will be consumed in a matter of 1-2 centuries. And then we as a species will die, and we will take the earth with us.

But there is a third way. Drop the shotgun.

The problem is...our society is "programmed". We are programmed to want "to get rich", want "the big car", want "the big house", want "those cool Nike's", want all this crap that won't do a damn thing for us

Right now, we are a civilization programmed to generate maximum harm. It's not intentional. Right now, most people will awknowledge that SOMETHING is wrong, but (a) they don't know what that something is or (b) they aren't allowed to do anything about it. People need money. People want the best life for their family, and need money to do that. People are ridiculed and even told there is something wrong with them when they can't get a job that pays enough to support themselves. And when they say they really don't want to do that work because either it doesn't give them purpose in life or it is recognisably destructive/useless, they are called "selfish". Selfish because they aren't willing to "make sacrifices for the greater good".

Selfish. When given the choice to do their part in eating another piece of the world for their own gain, they would say no. And we would call that person selfish. Amazing.

We will never go back in time to when people lived in huts and wore skins. You might think that by saying our civilization must be abandoned I would be suggesting this. Obviously that is false. But we can do two things:

We can stop living to generate maximum harm.

We can make a better life for everyone by letting them figure out what works best for themselves. No more pretending that we can logically surmise how to be gods.